New UT program makes student work available to newspapers

Utilizing the work of students, a new digital initiative at the University of Texas at Austin makes timely articles and multi-media reporting available to Texas newspapers.

According to UT journalism school director R.B. Brenner, Reporting Texas offers student-produced, professionally edited journalism to Texas newspapers and news sites as one of its four primary goals. In addition, the initiative seeks to “showcase the best work of UT undergraduate and graduate students; experiment with new approaches in journalism education; and combine aspects of community reporting with multimedia resources.”

Brenner also noted these efforts grow out of two previous initiatives at the UT School of Journalism – CapLink and the Capital News Service – in which student journalists provided free public affairs reporting to community newspapers around Texas. In that spirit, Reporting Texas offers all content free of charge to all news outlets as long as the service and its writers are credited for their work, he said.

Supported by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and its Initiative on the Future of Journalism Education, Reporting Texas accepts submissions from undergraduate and graduate students throughout the university, promoting engagement in the digital age of journalism. The articles are showcased on the website, http://reportingtexas.com/. “Reporting Texas focuses on unique and often hidden stories, using text, photos, audio, and video to provide in-depth views of people and places rarely seen in the news,” according to the website.

Publishers should contact Brenner at rbbrenner@austin.utexas.edu if they are interested in using some of the articles showcased on the website or for a confidential discussion about possible future story topics.

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